So I played a couple of games last night against a nasty Nym/Fett list. I've also played against Nym/Dash and used Nym/Dengar myself. Then you have the prevalence of various other ordnance and bomb carriers such as Miranda, Contracted Scouts, etc. Me and my opponents got to talking about the current state of the game afterwards and a couple of themes kept coming up. I'll also preface this by saying I was originally in the "Nym is fine" camp. Now I'm not so sure. Also, yes this is another "how do we fix X-Wing" thread. Sorry about that.

Anyway, the core problems in the game at the moment all seem to revolve around the fact green dice are barely useful in many cases. Last night we ha almost an entire list with 16 total hit points removed without the defender having to roll defence dice, due to Cad Bane bombs and the good old Autoblaster/Accuracy Corrector combo. Highly accurate missiles are also a similar problem. You do at least get to do something about them thanks to defence dice but they are often so accurate you need to roll perfectly on defence just to make sure you only take 1-2 damage, rather than 3 hits and a crit. None of this is exactly news at this point but I think what really drove it home was that we twice ended up in a situation with a Defender against Nym where there was no way the Defender could win because it couldn't escape Nym's PS10, BR, Boost, guaranteed 2-damge. When your space superiority fighter isn't as manoeuvrable as a heavy bomber, to the point where it can't get out of range 1 regardless of what it does, there's a fundamental problem, I think.

So what can be done (because this isn't just a whining post - we need solutions!)? Auto damage is a problem. Bombs are basically auto damage and obviously the AB/AC combo is too. Some random solutions we brainstormed included:

• Preventing action bombs going off the turn they're dropped. At the moment they function like highly-modified missiles thanks to Cad Bane and the ability to dump 2-3 bomb tokens on a target in one go. Sabine has a similar effect. You don't so much lay down a minefield, it's more you fire bombs directly into people's faces. That doesn't seem right. This proposal puts a premium on predicting your opponent and flying well.
• Make Accuracy Corrector only work on Primary Weapons. We also thought this could be expanded to include a bunch of other things - Expertise being a prime candidate, but possibly just making it a blanket restriction on actionless mods unless specifically stated otherwise. This stops the situation where you predict your opponent, block them and still take a torpedo shot thanks to K4/Expertise.
• Make Bomblet Generator an action bomb. This prevents Nym's repositioning shenanigans prior to using Genius and puts a premium on predicting your opponent and flying well.
• Prevent Extra Munitions working on bombs. There's a spiralling efficiency problem at the moment where you can stack Sabine/Cad with EM and high-PS bombers to effectively create a list worth far in excess of 100 points.
• Getting a bit more specific, I think Nym needs dealing with in a similar way to the rumoured Jumpmaster change. Removing some of the options from his upgrade bar would help a lot. Maybe have the Havoc title remove the Barrel Roll action, for example. Alternatively, remove the EPT slot.

The goal is to try to get back to a situation where you at least get to roll defence dice and different ships are useful for different - but equally useful - tasks.

We had ACTION bombs not detonate on overlap before. No one used them

AC on primaries only make it worthless. Why? Because 2 hits don't do **** to green dice

No EM makes non bombletts worthless outside the resistance bombers

If bombletts become ACTION, there's no need to further **** with nym. Much of the issue is that his wingmates are wildly op (two times world's first and second place Dengar and Miri)

Once dengar and miri are curtailed and bombs are not so easy to drop outside of dedicated bombers (as opposed to a roving mobile regenerating TLT fortress) everything will be swell

Because if at that point you STILL depend on dice to save you, it's not much of a tactical game anymore

When your space superiority fighter isn't as manoeuvrable as a heavy bomber, to the point where it can't get out of range 1 regardless of what it does, there's a fundamental problem, I think.

Period.

12 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Much of the issue is that his wingmates are wildly op (two times world's first and second place Dengar and Miri)

The data I've seen contradicts that, at least wrt Dengar. He's out already, hardly played on high level.

Just now, GreenDragoon said:

The data I've seen contradicts that, at least wrt Dengar. He's out already, hardly played on high level.

Not won events necessarily but rarely far from the top. DenNym does very well as a build.

Just now, Estarriol said:

Not won events necessarily but rarely far from the top. DenNym does very well as a build.

Not at different nationals where he's barely been played

Keep seeing him mentioned everywhere

Nary a whisper of scum nym if it ain't Denym

Not to mention miri still everywhere. Some mumurings of Nathan going HAM with corran, as usual, but guess who made 2nd at world's twice with miri in tow

"Green Dice: What Are They For?"

HUNH!

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

SAY IT AGAIN

Relax! In a couple of months the meta will start to swing and this time next year the combos of Miri/Nym and DenNym will be a nightmarish memory, replaced with something else to be complained about.

Oh almost forgot

Most issues with dodging abt nym and nym dodging you in general is due almost entirely to EU. He's more than managable with just his native roll

Now personally, I wouldn't be the LEAST bit sad to see EU go. Been a problematic pain in the *** since wave 5

I say remove EPT from the scurgg, replacing it with another missile so it's upgrade bar is full. Then nerf his wingmen. That will make him stop being OP, but still competitive. Auto damage is annoying, but if you can't escape range one of a ship that moves before you, you have no business complaining about his perfect knowledge.

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! SAY IT AGAIN NOW!

Someone suggested something like this a while back and I still think it would be an elegant counter to bombs and give fragile Aces a chance against them:

release an upgrade card that says "when a bomb is deployed within range 1 of you, you may perform a free action on your action bar."

Gives fragile Aces, which usually have barrel roll and/or boost, a chance to get out of the blast radius. It would need to trigger off of something else, too (like perhaps when you receive a red target lock token), so that it's not completely useless if your opponent doesn't bring bombs.

I don't post very often (in this forum), but I do find the on-going debate about ordnance very amusing.

I have been around this game since the beginning, and until the last couple of waves, one of the biggest on-going complaints was the fact that ordnance was worthless ... cost too much, doesn't do anything, what is the point, etc.

Now, FFG actually makes the ordnance valuable, and the whining doesn't stop ... it just approaches from a different angle.

As I said, amusing.

Wait a wave or two, and we will find new things to complain about as it pertains to xxxxx (xxxxx can be a stand in for just about any mechanic, ship, etc. in this game).

10 minutes ago, Herowannabe said:

Someone suggested something like this a while back and I still think it would be an elegant counter to bombs and give fragile Aces a chance against them:

You're probably not talking about me, but I had posted the same idea here

4 minutes ago, any2cards said:

Wait a wave or two, and we will find new things to complain about as it pertains to xxxxx (xxxxx can be a stand in for just about any mechanic, ship, etc. in this game).

But specifically, it refers to the -1 point T-65 title that lets you treat your turns as red T-rolls. Five rookies!

1 hour ago, Stoneface said:

Relax! In a couple of months the meta will start to swing and this time next year the combos of Miri/Nym and DenNym will be a nightmarish memory, replaced with something else to be complained about.

Perhaps but just having the current OP ship replaced with one even worse doesn't remove the original offender.

Introducing some blue dice / Shield Dice would be interesting. As long as you have a shield point left, you roll a number of Shield Dice when defending, equal to your agility score (plus any mods, maybe the shield upgrade card could +1 your dice total). This roll would be in place of agility dice for as long as you have shields left. The dice would have an additional evade result on them, and you could also roll them against bombs and accuracy turret attacks.

You wouldn't even need to change any existing pilot cards.

My only complaint is that in the basic design of the game we have Pilot Skill. This is to simulate a skilled pilot versus an academy (hello ps1 Tie) pilot. The order of operations is lowest PS moves first but shoots last. The Highest PS moves last but shoots first (except in a tie of PS of course, hello Simultaneous Fire). This is explained by FFG as a Pilot with a higher Pilot Skill has more experience and can react to the game state better. For example Vader being PS 9 and being able to move last to Barrel Roll out of arc simulating his superior skill in an agile star fighter.

I said all of this to explain my complaint. How is it that a PS 9+ pilot can get a bomb dropped on him without the ability to react to the new board state (hello ADV. SLAM Drop Bomb on ACE). I have no problem with Nym being super mobile and dropping bomblets, and I have no problem with Emon slinging bombs around asteroids, and I have no problem with Sabine adding a damage if I am within range one of a bomb that goes off. I have a problem with being Range 3 at PS 11 with Vader and a ps2 K-wing (not even Miri) does a 3 bank and a 3 bank and drops clusters on me before I even get to move. If PS is a thing and I am supposed to have the ability to react to the board state when at PS 11, would I not be able to see that this guy wants to bomb me and is going to try and drop the bomb on me so I should be able to react to that. How do we handle this is my question?

@ficklegreendice is right in that we had action bombs that did not go off on Overlap. And he was right in that they did not get used. I understand FFG changing it so they go off when they do but at the same time losing 1/3rd of my list before I even get to shoot, which has happened, is very frustrating.

I like the idea that if a bomb gets dropped within range 1 of an ace said ace gets a free action, but it needs to be only if said ace has not activated yet, and if the bomb is dropped on said Ace not in front of him the bomb does not go off that round because an ace that has not activated should be able to see the bomb being dropped and should be able to react to it.

Lets look at it another way. Simultaneous Fire.... Ships of the same PS fire at the same time simulating two ships reacting at the same time and speed. But a pilot of Higher skill gets to shoot first simulating his ability to react and shoot faster than a pilot of lesser skill. So then why do pilots of higher skill not get the same advantage against bombs being dropped by pilots of lower skill? Same PS fine it becomes initiative based and if the Ace is lower PS than the Bomber then to bad for you, you already activated and moved and the other pilot out flew you.

Just my 2 cents. Sorry for the wall of text.

2 minutes ago, Superstrength79 said:

Introducing some blue dice / Shield Dice would be interesting. As long as you have a shield point left, you roll a number of Shield Dice when defending, equal to your agility score (plus any mods, maybe the shield upgrade card could +1 your dice total). This roll would be in place of agility dice for as long as you have shields left. The dice would have an additional evade result on them, and you could also roll them against bombs and accuracy turret attacks.

You wouldn't even need to change any existing pilot cards.

Soooo make all the ships with shields better but none of the ships without.

Sounds like exactly the opposite of a solution to the problem.

Honestly, aces getting wrecked by bombs shouldn't be a problem. You're flying suicide boats, you will get wrecked if you don't plan ahead

Problem is the need for accelerated bomb damage to match red dice creep and ease of bombing on ASLAM and EU nym platforms.

Once you perform the necessary nerfs on jumps and TLTs, you can work on curtailing bomb damage by turning Sabine into bomb em

Also really oughta remove dice rolls from bombs because it is ******* stupid that a bomblett can either oneshot soontir or do jack **** based on purely ONE DICE ROLL

Bombletts should be seismics, proxs should do crit through shields and clusters should be a damage per template. Then change cad to em for bombs too because he will have become useless

51 minutes ago, any2cards said:

I don't post very often (in this forum), but I do find the on-going debate about ordnance very amusing.

I have been around this game since the beginning, and until the last couple of waves, one of the biggest on-going complaints was the fact that ordnance was worthless ... cost too much, doesn't do anything, what is the point, etc.

Now, FFG actually makes the ordnance valuable, and the whining doesn't stop ... it just approaches from a different angle.

As I said, amusing.

Wait a wave or two, and we will find new things to complain about as it pertains to xxxxx (xxxxx can be a stand in for just about any mechanic, ship, etc. in this game).

The problem isn't that ordnance has merely been improved, it's that it's now been made too good. Just because it wasn't great before, doesn't mean it can't move straight through "balanced" directly into "broken" territory.

I'm not sure waiting is going to help much. It seems to have been a trend for quite a while now to increase the power of ordnance and auto damage so my worry isn't that we have one particularly broken ship, like with the Phantom when it released, but that there seems to be a design philosophy that I don't think is healthy.

Some already warned years ago that making ordnance viable would put an end to the dogfighting. It did in real life, it did in the X-wing flight sims in the 90s, and it did in the miniature game.

It's not a matter of "they changed it from too bad to too good". Missiles and torpedoes are supposed to be peak damage if they hit, nothing if they don't. Of course, if people equip them, they will equip them in platforms with upgrades that almost guarantee full damage (double mods, chips, etc).
They will not bring half-assed missiles that can deal half-assed damage. For that they can use a ship with big primaries or a cannon and save the trouble. That is what happened before ordnance was fixed. Why bring missiles when you can bring HLC? That's why we never saw TIE Bombers, or ordnance filled K-wings or TIE Punishers, or Y-wings or B-wings with torpedoes, etc.

Fixing ordnance was like making the water overflow a dam. It was almost there, almost there, then all of sudden all is flooded.

Bombs and Autoblaster are the same. Nobody used Proton Bombs because even when the effect was great, it was very difficult to get your points back during a game because they were easy to avoid and hard to use. Now they are usable and they deal reliable damage, so everyone uses them because... well... it's reliable damage!

I don't want to propose any magical solution because, in general, we the community suck at making fixes for anything.
But in real life and in the X-wing flight sims in the 90s they resorted to equipping countermeasures to keep those missiles under control. In the flight sims it was also possible to shoot down the incoming missiles and torpedoes.

Okay, I'll propose this general rule:
When defending from a missile or torpedo secondary weapon, or when suffering the effects of a detonating bomb, if the attacker or bomb token is inside your arc, you may choose a weapon and roll as many attack dice as its attack value. You may cancel 1 damage that was going to be dealt to you for every hit and crit rolled.

This represents you trying to shoot down the incoming salvo of missiles or torpedoes, or the incoming cluster of bombs or mines thrown at your face.

Green dice are for: Inflating the points cost of Imperial ships so that they're not competitive. Considering all the things that bypass Agility, AGI is basically a dump stat now, lol. HP >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> AGI

Green dice are from a more civilized time.